Better Than
by Saucery
Summary: Oh, you know, the usual. Two Japanese schoolboys snogging a rooftop. One of them's kind of a sociopath, though. Um. Sorry? Based on and set immediately after the 11th chapter of "Flat", a manga by Aogiri Natsu.


**Flat**

* * *

It's not like Satou doesn't know how difficult honesty is. Hell, he's never managed it. Honesty requires _depth_ - stupid, aching hollows of the heart - and he's practically all surface. He's polished, mirror-bright, armed literally to the teeth with the shit-eating grin that most mistake as careless, and it _is_, except that it isn't, because it's a study of carelessness. Not the real thing. (A still life. An imitation. 'Mimesis', as their art teacher would say.)

It's not like he doesn't know, but still. Who the hell _asks_ to be friends? Like it's fucking kindergarten, or something. But Kaidou did - just out and _asked_ for it, out there in the middle of the street, years of wretched loneliness bubbling to the surface. It was pathetic. It was embarrassing. And goddamn excruciating to watch - a guy his age behaving like that, completely disarmed, completely taken apart. It had struck Satou, then, how _weak_ Kaidou was. Like a child, almost - all sob-snarls and snot. Disgustingly, frighteningly honest.

Brittle. Transparent. _Clear_.

And that's mostly why he's out here, now, on the school rooftop, hanging out with Kaidou even though he can see that Kaidou hates it, hates being patronized like this, and Satou's sorely tempted to say, _Well, don't ask for friends, then, if you don't want them,_ but he doesn't, because being honest isn't _his_ forte.

A can of Fanta dangles from Kaidou's hand, his fingers as desperately loose as the limbs of a hanged man. Satou's studying him - closely, deliberately - but Kaidou's looking away, away and over the wire fence, out across the city. The sun and the wind make of his hair an auburn, windswept mess, and Satou's reminded ridiculously of the feathers at a robin's breast - red, ruffled and soft.

It makes him want to _bite_, so he smiles, instead - and leans closer to Kaidou, lifting the can out of his grasp.

Kaidou doesn't protest - no _Hey, what the fuck, man_, or _That was my drink_, like most boys would do. Of course he doesn't. He doesn't know _how_ to banter, having been friendless all his life. Instead, Kaidou flinches - _shrinks_ - and Satou grinds his teeth in a widening grin. He sets the can down beside them, running a finger along its mouth.

"You don't have to do this," Kaidou says, not meeting his eyes - following the movement of Satou's hand, instead, with the alertness one usually reserves for snakes.

"Do what?" Satou shifts even closer.

"This. Whatever you're." Kaidou _starts_, and Satou realizes that his hand's on Kaidou's stomach, now, which is as warm as softened meat under the worn white of Kaidou's shirt. So helplessly tender, somehow, in the way it jumps under Satou's palm.

"Hey, you said you wanted to be friends. I'm just being friendly."

Kaidou's eyes are wide, still refusing to look at him, fixing instead on his shoulder. His mouth's slightly open. Satou catches a whiff of Fanta. "This," Kaidou repeats, and stops. His throat works. "This isn't."

"Isn't it? This is what Suzuki and Heisuke do, too, you know. What's it called? 'Friends with benefits.'"

Kaidou looks briefly horrified, then betrayed. It's fascinating, watching the expressions shift from one to the other, the flush on Kaidou's face rising as excruciatingly hot as a lava-lamp. "No," he whispers, and _god_, he's fucking _perfect_.

"It's all right," Satou says, easily, and leans close enough for his fringe to brush Kaidou's, to feel Kaidou's forehead against his.

"I should," Kaidou mumbles, waveringly, "I should go. It's almost..."

"Yeah," Satou agrees. He slides his hand up to Kaidou's chest, settling over his heart, over the pulse and the beat of it. Quick as a rabbit's feet.

"Please," says Kaidou, and his breath's so _sweet_.

"I hear you," Satou says, making that 'please' out to mean the exact opposite of what it does, because it's so _convenient_, after all, and Kaidou's mouth is right _there_, so Satou kisses it.

And clutches Kaidou's shirt - tightly - when Kaidou tries to wrench away.

Satou's hard, in his regulation school trousers, which is annoying because it makes him seem like a _virgin_ or something, and even Kaidou isn't hard, yet, despite actually being one. It's obvious that he's a virgin, since he doesn't even know how to kiss; he just sits there, _breathing_, as tense as a startled animal.

So Satou takes his time. He talks to Kaidou's mouth, a little - moves his lips in subtle murmurs, licking over the arch of Kaidou's upper lip and closing his teeth gently, ever-so-gently over the fine-furred, never-shaved fuzz above it. Satou's mind lurches; he has a flash of what Kaidou must be like, down there, where groin meets thigh.

Silent shocks shiver through Kaidou's body. Satou can _feel_ them, and it's - god, it's so good that he wants _in_, in Kaidou's mouth, already, but he has to take his fucking time. He has to bait and switch that tight little mouth until it opens for him, and yes, there it is, there it _is_ - a tiny quiver and he's _in_, slow spit-slide of warm, mossy sweetness and Fanta-flavored _heat_, and Kaidou's tongue, awkwardly shying away from his but ready, oh-so-ready to be _coaxed_, and it's either beautiful or maddening or _both_, because Satou's lost in the wet sounds of it, the smooth curls of it, and Kaidou's shivers are full-blown _shudders_ now, hard enough to jar them both, and Kaidou's keeps _opening_ for him like he doesn't know how to _stop_ -

But then Kaidou jerks away, their mouths parting in a sudden rush of breath, and Kaidou's hands are on his shoulders. Pushing.

It takes Satou a moment to focus.

"Bell," Kaidou gasps - rasps, really - and hey, yeah, that's the last ring of the lunch bell, pealing out over the school grounds.

Satou could choose to be pissed off that Kaidou actually had the faculties to _hear_ that, but Satou's own hands are clinging tightly to the wire fence on either sides of Kaidou's head, and he's breathing a bit too hard to afford derision. He's almost forgotten his plan to fuck Kaidou _later_, to do this right and proper over a period of weeks - to take Kaidou apart, piece by piece, and savor that transparent _agony_ of his. He's almost forgotten, because fuck it, they're _both_ hard, now - but then he chances a look at Kaidou's face, and yeah. Kaidou's still not looking at him.

That damn honesty, huh?

And so, in a vicious upward press of his thigh, he rubs against Kaidou's erection - and Kaidou finally whips his head up to look at Satou, that betrayed look on his face again, before he shoves Satou _off_ of him and clambers sideways along the wire fence. Satou falls on his elbows and grimaces - but he makes sure that it's his charming grimace, the one that gets all the girls squealing over him in Phys. Ed.

"Oi, oi, that hurts. Wasn't that bad, was it?"

Kaidou looks at him like he's gone mad. "You - you can't be - I'm not. I'm never doing this again."

"I told you, Suzuki and Heisuke are friends, and they do this all the - "

"We. Are not. _Friends_," Kaidou grits out, and then _shakes_, once and violently and all over, looking for all the world like he's about to _cry_.

"Yes, we are," Satou replies, smiling up at him - and Kaidou's expression is such a mesmerizing mixture of lust-blind confusion and contempt that it's _gorgeous_, and Satou briefly considers sacrificing his dignity in favor of shoving a hand down his own pants and jerking himself off, right here, where Kaidou can see him.

"Don't ever come near me again," says Kaidou, unnecessarily, because they both know that Satou will, and that Kaidou will let him, again and again, until Satou's had his fill.

Well, Satou knows that, anyway. Kaidou will know it soon enough.

So Satou merely cocks his head, grins, and relishes the sting of his scraped elbows. He'll make Kaidou sting a lot worse. Later.

Kaidou ignores him; he hauls his bag over his shoulder, picks up the can and - ever-conscientious - drops it in the recycling bin by the rooftop door.

"My little angel," Satou says, and laughs.

But Kaidou's already gone - a clatter of descending steps - and Satou wonders idly about whether to return to class, or whether to skip the rest of the day altogether. Heisuke has that bake-a-thon thing after school, so it might be worth it to hang around just for that... And for the sight of Suzuki, too, pretending furiously that he isn't, for all intents and purposes, Heisuke's naggy wife.

Satou snorts. _A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush,_ he thinks, and raises his own hand to look at it. The pattern of the wire fence is still etched upon it: a crisscrossing mesh of bloodless lines. Satou remembers windswept auburn, soft as new feathers, and curls it back into a fist.

* * *

**fin.**

Please review!


End file.
